scholarly journals Neopatrimonialism: The Immense Power of Appointment of the Liberian Presidency

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Gobewole
Keyword(s):  
State Capacity ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Public Corruption ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
Local Leaders ◽  
Patronage System

This study examines important factors of disenfranchisement of political subdivisions in Liberia, especially counties and districts due largely to the presidential power of appointment. The study analyzes survey, empirical, and constitutional amendment data gathered by Afrobarometer (Round 7 Survey), election statistics, and public officials’ appointment information. It then correlates associations between the number of county executives, presidential tenure, and referendum approvals to demonstrate a diminishment of democracy due to denying citizens’ right to vote for their local leaders. This has resulted from a gradual enhancement of the Liberian president’s power of appointment, which developed neopatrimonialism in Liberia and continues to foster a patronage system of governance that increases public corruption, a practice that has minimized state capacity, fostered state instability, and raised the potential for conflict.

scholarly journals Legal Liability of the Deputies to NPC for Selling Ballots

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-90
Author(s):  
Zhou Heng
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
The Status ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
People's Congress

Deputies to people’s congresses enjoy the right to elect the personnel of a state organ, members of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress at the same level and deputies to the People’s Congress at a higher level in accordance with the provisions of the law. Based on the official nature of the right to vote, deputies to NPC can not transfer their right to vote and sell votes. As selling ballots is an illegal exercise of their official duty, they should assume for corresponding criminal responsibility for the crime of undermining election and bribery provided in the Criminal Law of China. Moreover, delegates to NPC who have the status of public officials shall be included in the supervision , and strengthen the responsibility inquiry.

Mexico

2019 ◽  
pp. 310-343
Author(s):  
Andrew Boutros
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Full Force ◽  
Mexican Congress ◽  
Legal Entities

There have been significant changes to Mexican law recently that have provided prosecutors updated and enhanced tools to combat corruption. In May 2015, the Mexican Congress and the states approved a constitutional amendment that created the National Anti-Corruption System, which was put into full force and effect in 2017. This supplemented and broadened the already existing anti-corruption laws in Mexico’s public procurement process. Now individuals and legal entities can be criminally liable for bribery of public officials in Mexico. In November 2014, Mexico City passed modifications to the criminal code making bribery an offense that can be committed by both individuals and legal entities and created an innovative approach to calculating penalties against companies. However, even though laws have changed, much remains to be done. The OECD noted that Mexico has fully implemented very few of the recommendations that it has made to eradicate corruption. Mexico still had no prosecutions or convictions for foreign bribery. Corruption is still common in Mexico, with the widespread use of “gestores” or intermediaries to navigate the bureaucracies responsible for issuing licenses and permits, shell companies owned by family members of government officials seeking a bribe, fictitious service providers, and improper gifting and excessive hospitality to employees of state-owned entities. With the new Lopez Obrador Administration’s anti-corruption plan, further changes are anticipated in public procurement by the creation of a central mechanism to manage and monitor public contracts to achieve greater transparency. The new administration has also committed to creating an autonomous Special Prosecutor’s Office to independently investigate and prosecute corruption cases and to implement additional restrictions on entertainment and gifts provided to public officials.

How State Presence Leads to Civil Conflict

2020 ◽  
pp. 002200272095706
Author(s):  
Luwei Ying
Keyword(s):  
Census Data ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Power ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Province Level ◽  
Local Leaders

Political scientists and policy-makers have long argued that state weakness leads to civil conflict while enhancing state power helps prevent violence. Why, then, has increased state capacity worldwide recently coincided with more civil conflicts? This study argues that enhanced state presence at the sub-national level—a symptom of growing state capacity—may induce violent resistance from the established non-state powers such as local leaders and communities in the short term. Empirically, I conduct two analyses, one at the province level and the other at the ethnic group level. To measure state presence, I use accuracy of census data in the first analysis and global ground transportation data in the second analysis. Results demonstrate that increased state presence triggers civil conflict, particularly in the first five years of such increasing state presence, and this effect is stronger in remote and ethnically heterogeneous regions. Evidence also suggests that ethnic groups settled in peripheral regions are prominent resisters to state penetration. This paper thus expands prior understanding of the role of state power in civil conflicts.

Jokowi’s pro-investment reform push will founder

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Finance Minister ◽  
Middle Income Trap

Significance In his inauguration speech, he expressed commitment to reforms that he believes can help the country attract investment and escape a middle-income trap. Meanwhile, there are indications that several parliamentary parties want to amend the constitution to reduce presidential power. Impacts Jokowi will probably delay implementing some of his controversial reforms to the country’s leading anti-corruption body. Any constitutional amendment to end direct presidential elections would raise fears among investors about good governance in Indonesia. Most investors will welcome Jokowi’s retention of Sri Mulyani Indrawati as finance minister.

Indonesia

2019 ◽  
pp. 279-310
Author(s):  
Andrew Boutros
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Bright Spot ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Public Corruption ◽  
Financial Intelligence ◽  
Corporate Criminal Liability

Indonesia continues to make steady progress strengthening its anti-corruption framework, adopting new anti-corruption laws, and prosecuting those who run afoul of them. At the same time, the level of corruption remains significant, as demonstrated by continued examples of public corruption including the high-profile eKTP case that has implicated at least 37 senior public officials for stealing hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in public funds. Indonesia has a solid framework of anti-corruption laws, and recently added a focus on corporate criminal liability to its toolkit. Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi or KPK) is a bright spot of independence, professionalism, and progress for enforcing anti-corruption laws and holding corrupt judges, cabinet ministers, high ranking police officers, governors, legislators, and politicians accountable. Independent anti-corruption courts, and a skilled and well-functioning financial intelligence unit (the PPATK), are also key institutions in the ongoing battle to weed out historical and institutionalized corruption, graft, and cronyism. Indonesia’s current Reformasi era is still less than 20 years old, and as much as great progress has been made, it will take significant continued political will to combat wealthy and influential forces that continue to benefit from corruption and who will seek to undermine reform. Indonesia’s current president, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, was elected in 2014 on a platform of reform and clean government, and the results of his upcoming re-election bid in 2019 may be a significant indicator of whether the progress made under his leadership will continue, or whether anti-corruption institutions and efforts in Indonesia will falter.

Constitutions, Rights, and Judicial Power

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Alec Stone Sweet ◽  
Jud Mathews
Keyword(s):  
Public Authority ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Constitutional Justice ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Higher Law ◽  
Proportionality Principle

This chapter provides an overview of contemporary, rights-based constitutionalism, and develops an approach to comparative research on systems of constitutional justice. The vast majority of modern constitutions establish such systems, which comprise an entrenched charter of rights, and a constitutional or supreme court whose mission is to defend the supremacy of the constitution more generally. Rights provisions comprise criteria of legal validity: any act of public authority that does not conform to the charter is unconstitutional. The central role of the court is to ensure that public officials do not violate the charter of rights, most importantly, through the enforcement of the proportionality principle. The judges are, in effect, “trustees” of the values placed in trust by those who have enacted the constitution: the sovereign People. Part I defines basic concepts—including that of “the constitution,” “constitutionalism,” and “governance”—and examines the process through which the rights-based constitution became the global standard. Part II addresses two crucial questions: why would the founders of new constitutions choose (i) to enshrine constitutional rights as “higher law,” and (ii) to delegate broad enforcement powers to a trustee court, whose important rulings on rights are difficult or virtually impossible to overturn? It then defines the concept of systemic effectiveness, and considers the conditions that are necessary for a charter of rights to become effective as an instrument of governance. Part III explores three pathways to transformative constitutional change—adjudication, constitutional amendment, and legislation—and discusses the importance of trusteeship to each.

State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China: CCP Cadre Management from a Township Perspective

2003 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 35-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Edin
Keyword(s):  
State Capacity ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Central State ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
Local Agent ◽  
Agent Control ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
And Control ◽  
Party State ◽  
Local Leaders

This study argues against the view that the capacity of the central state has declined in the reform era in China. It examines how reforms have been introduced into the old system of cadre management to make it more effective, but also how higher levels of the party-state have improved monitoring and strengthened political control through promoting successful township leaders to hold concurrent positions at higher levels and by rotating them between different administrative levels and geographical areas. Its findings suggest that state capacity, defined as the capacity to monitor and control lower level agents, has increased. The reason behind the failure to implement some policies, such as burden reduction, is not so much inadequate control over local leaders as the centre's own priorities and conflicting policies. The Chinese party-state maintains the ability to be selectively effective in the beginning of 2000s.

The Constitution of Zimbabwe: Towards A Model for Africa?

1991 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hatchard
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Legislative Activity ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

On 18 April, 1991, the Republic of Zimbabwe celebrated its 11th year of independence. Coincidentally, just a few months earlier, the 11th constitutional amendment Act was passed. This flurry of legislative activity was the result of a desire on the part of the government to develop a new constitutional structure rather than to remain with the constitution which was essentially imposed upon it by the British during the 1979 Lancaster House conference which eventually led to independence in 1980. The new constitutional model is of considerable interest as it is based upon those operating in many other African nations but, according to the Minister of Justice, is designed to provide safeguards on the exercise of presidential power and to avoid unnecessary conflict and division between the various branches of government. On several occasions, ministers have stressed the autochthonous nature of the new structure and some have indeed suggested that it might form a model for other African countries.It is the intention of this article to examine the legitimacy of these assertions by analysing both the new constitutional structure and its operation in practice. In order to assess the significance of these changes, it is first necessary to examine very briefly the Lancaster House constitution and constitutional developments in the early years of independence.

Guatemala

2019 ◽  
pp. 229-251
Author(s):  
Andrew Boutros
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Liability ◽  
International Commission ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Criminal Offenses ◽  
Public Corruption ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Independent Organization

This chapter provides an overview of Guatemala’s expanding anti-corruption legislation, which criminalizes certain types of corruption involving both domestic and foreign public officials. The chapter focuses, in part, on the country’s Decree 31-2012, which introduced new criminal offenses related to the bribery of foreign officials, expanded the concept of criminal liability for corporate offenses, and increased penalties for certain acts of bribery. The chapter describes Guatemalan government agencies involved in the investigation and enforcement of corruption-related crimes, as well as their cooperation with international bodies. Most notable among the latter is the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (“Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala” or CICIG), a UN-sponsored independent organization charged with investigating and prosecuting certain serious crimes in Guatemala, such as those involving public officials. Recent developments covered include increased investigation and prosecution of public corruption at its highest levels, although the chapter notes some skepticism regarding the continued effectiveness of the country’s anti-corruption drive.

The Power of Money: Chinese Investments and Financialization in an Asian Hinterland

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110200
Author(s):  
Hasan H. Karrar
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Chinese Business ◽  
North Pakistan ◽  
Silk Route ◽  
Implicit Power ◽  
Local Leaders

In February 2002, a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise (SOE), Sinotrans Xinjiang, partnered with a local Pakistani collective, the Silk Route Dry Port Trust, to finance and operate a dry port in mountainous north Pakistan. Given minimal overland trade between China and Pakistan, this was an unlikely place for investment by a subsidiary of one of China’s largest SOEs. Individuals who commanded extensive social networks and possessed local knowledge were instrumental in brokering the joint venture. Brokers both Chinese and Pakistani leveraged the implicit power of money to create a new institution, the dry port joint venture, that helped normalize the presence and operations of Chinese business leaders in north Pakistan. The joint venture also enabled Pakistani strongmen to exert their control over local land and draw funds from a public bank, activities that ultimately undermined the joint venture itself. This episode is more than just a cautionary tale of an unsuccessful joint venture between a Chinese SOE and local partners. The episode highlights how, in an epoch of transnational financialization, money empowered local leaders, public officials, and official organizations to engage in and indeed benefit from loss-making activities that combine both regular and irregular processes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document